BUYING Frank Gotch T229 Kopec Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
Hoosier guy I am definitely going to have to check that DVD out. I love old regional wrestling and Memphis had some hot feuds.
Make sure you go check out the Registry and you will find Lawler, and Dundee in 82A, and Austin Idol is in 83. All of those guys were obviously major stars in the CWF.
Here is a pic of relatively recent photo with Rickey Steamboat at the local FCW show with his WWE Hall of Fame ring. He is so proud of it and it was great to talk to him about his legendary matches with Flair and Randy Savage. It was a super cool moment.
I have spent countless hours too talking with my dad about the matches in the 70's that Eddie Graham promoted here in Orlando and it is special to me as well. Thanks for checking the article out.
King it was my mom. She is a photographer and sells her pictures locally.PSA told me to take some pics with the cards and of me and send them in so she naturally volunteered.
The baseball glove was kind of a joke since so many of the baseball guys used to rag on the cards. I figured there would be something for everyone
If you do end up framing the pages from the article (which I would if it were me), I would snag the hi-res pages from the Digital SMR that they just posted today. You could snag the pages, crop them nice, and have a photo place print nice images to frame.
EDIT: I just read that your Mom is a photographer, so I'm sure she could print nice pages for you.
The guy who does my moms prints is who did my high resolution scans. You need a serious scanner or to send the cards to PSA. I liked the idea better of getting someone local to scan them.
BUYING Frank Gotch T229 Kopec Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
My dads best friend owned a car lot here in Indiana back in the 70's and used to buy cars at the Indianapolis auto auction.He bought a caddy or a benz cant remember which at the auction that was owned by Dick the Bruiser.When he got home and was checking it out he found a pair of brass knucks under the seat.Could you imagine Dick the Bruiser hitting you with his fist let alone a pair of knucks.
Man that would be a scary situation for sure!! That dude was a beast!
Here is the Dick The Bruiser card. One of the things I like so much about these sets is the pictures in many cases were taken much earlier then the cards. They simply used the best stock photos they had that could look like a head shot.
DPeck- Great cards! I grew up with the greats from the 70's and was at MSG when Hulk Hogan beat the Iron Sheik for the WWF championship. It was so obvious to me that Bob Backlund (who lost the belt to the Sheik 1-2 months before) was passing the torch to Hogan. Vince MaMahon was taking the WWF (now WWE) in a different direction and Hogan was going to be his showcase champion. I followed wrestling until a few years ago. But now I'm tempted to collect these cards.
Great article. Congrats. It seems to have sparked some interest in wrestling cards too. Sales have been pretty strong since the article. Now I wish smr would do an article on panini and lampo boxing cards.
Back in May when that months SMR came out I read the current article in the magazine and thought they should do a story about my sets. I went out that night to a work dinner and came home in a bad mood and got a wild hair and wrote an email to Joe Orlando explaining why I thought it was a good idea. We had emailed in the past as I was making him more aware of the cards. The next day I got an email back that said they would love to and he got me hooked up with one of their writers and we did the interview and I got them a few pictures and some high resolution scans and then just waited patiently for it to come out.
Thats so cool. I always say you don't know till you try and you did it. Thats soooo awesome.
I did the same thing one time with music. I love the band Everclear so I wrote to them one night on myspace when it was big asking to play with them because they were doing a show in my town and the next day I woke up and sure enough he wrote back saying sure. Its on youtube if you wanna check out how it came out. Just type in "Everclear Culture Room" and there you go. Id rather not really post the link to steal your thunder on here.
Again, Congrats!!! Very cool pictures too. Good job to whoever took them. I like the one with with you outside wearing a glove. Thought that was kinda neat.
<< <i>Very cool pictures too. Good job to whoever took them. I like the one with with you outside wearing a glove. Thought that was kinda neat. >>
I agree. I think it would be great if I ever got featured for my Butler collection (snowball's chance in hell of that happening, obviously) if I could be photographed with my tuba.
That is awesome you have your own set for your Bret Butler cards.
I no longer collect baseball cards but certainly appreciate your passion. I just checked out your registry link too and those are some very sharp cards.
Dude, your brothers AWESOME!! I checked out like 3 videos. Total shredder. Reading by the comments, seems like hes popular with the ladies too! lol
So I assume youve met Mark Tremonti as well?
Moral of this topic - You never know till you try (because that's how thing happen) but all in all - you have a great collection of wrestling cards. Love that you went out and bought the best possible cards/set you could.
All stars seem to have a bit of a spike after this article came out......hope a few more sets surface as well.
BUYING Frank Gotch T229 Kopec Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
those sets looked pretty good i though from the scans.......
BUYING Frank Gotch T229 Kopec Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
David, Excellent write up on you and your collection. Your passion for wrestling cards is very evident via the boards. I didn't realize however just how large your collection of cards was. Very impressive.
I checked out your sets last week and you have some awesome cards. The 52 Bowman of Musial was a PSA 9 and sweet!!!
In order to compile these sets I needed to buy a lot of material. I just never sold much of it so I am up to close to 2000 cards.
There is still work to do and it just has come to a stand still as no new cards are surfacing in strong condition. I am sure there are more out there but it is getting so tough to find anything new.
I agree, I do not imagine anyone topping any of the three sets that he has from the all stars. He can have the top spot for however long as he keeps what he has currently.
BUYING Frank Gotch T229 Kopec Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
King there are still 7 of the 108 cards I do not have in the top available grade and plenty of others that have yet to surface in mint or higher so the journey is far from over.
The major problem is there has not been a decent number of new cards graded for three or four months and if there were tons of sealed sets of the 82A or 82B laying around they would have hit EBAY by now.
The last sealed set of the 82A sold for $1,461 so that is a big signal to potential sellers and trust me there are plenty of people who if they owned a sealed set would part ways with it at that price all day long.
There are definitely more nice cards out there but the big discovery phase has already happened.
I have close to 1400 raw cards left and not many that are going to grade a PSA 8 or higher. If you look at the lots on EBAY currently plenty have dinged corners and those will just not cut it if you are looking to get cards graded.
Bubblebath the odds of an Andre The Giant PSA 10 are less then 1% if that. The yellow cards that came at the front have terrible centering and corners so I can't rule it out for certain but the odds are extremely low.
In terms of the late 70's material you collect, there are nearly 59,000 cards from 1977 graded, 106,000 from 1978 and just under 59,000 from 1979. You are dealing with two completely different animals.
It is a lot more difficult to predict the future when there have been 224,000 cards graded from the three year run of late 70's cards. There have been less then 1300 graded from the two years these sets ran and at least 50 of those were resubmitted by Rick Probstein and a few by me.
I have done a lot of homework on these sets. The guy I bought the sealed set from that is mentioned in the article sold off his batch in 2009. He lived in Minnesota where the sets were produced and had about 10 sets he had gotten from someone who worked for PWE in 1982 and 1983 and he would put them on display at shows for $10 back then and either get laughed at or get offers at $2 so he decided to pull them and put them aside and came across them in 2009. I bought one of each of the three sets from him and he knew from first hand knowledge these did not sell well back then direct from the company.
I know another guy from New York who has been responsible for a lot of the ultra rare signed cards that have surfaced and ended up in a few board member's collections and he said he had wrestlers actually keep the cards back in 1982 because they did not even know they had a trading card made of them. He was the only person getting these signed at the many events he attended back then.
I can't say with any real certainty what is left sealed but I doubt there is much. What I can say with 100% certainty is you can't recreate my sets. It is really not debatable. I have 43 Pop 1's and a hand full more where there are a few that are the top grade and I own the entire lot. This is not a statement to brag or pound my chest it is simply reality.
I can promise you one thing, there are a lot of dealers over the past two years that have moved graded product on EBAY and trust me if they could get their hands on some nice ungraded cards they would buy them in a heart beat. I have had several large dealers tell me they just can't find the stuff.
In 2010 when I first came on this board I said these were rare and were going to be a big draw for collectors. I was right they were rare, time will tell if I am right they will be a big draw for collectors. Judging by the price change since I began buying these cards one thing is true, when you have a low supply it does not take that many new buyers to have a price increase. The next year will be very telling for these cards and perhaps a lot come out of the woodwork but my bet is they don't in grading worthy condition.
<< <i>Great article Dpeck.My wife bought me Memphis Heat for xmas and it is awesone.I grew up watching Lawler,Dundee and all the guys that wrestled for Jarrett.Some of my greatest memories are of when my dad(passed away in 2008 at 58 yrs old) would take me to the Cincinnati Gardens to watch wrestling.I was there for one of the historic Flair/Steamboat matches.I used to bs with my dad all the time about the old wrestling days but I cant find anyone around here that has my enthusiasm about it. >>
When I say around here I mean the Cincy area. >>
I grew up approximately 80 miles from Memphis and would wake up every Saturday morning and watch Memphis wrestling. I've met Lawler and Dundee and a few others several times, My mom was good friends with Peggy Gilbert, (Wife of Tommy and Dirty Doug & Eddie hot stuff's Mom). One of my favorites was "Handsome Jimmy". That dude was cool personified.
Here is the only sealed 82 A to make it's way to EBAY in the past six months and this Andre is probably a PSA 5 or 6 at best. Tons of the other cards have damage too.
These cards were never produced to be graded just like most. When cards come in a ultra tight cellophane pack it destroys the cards.
They were never distributed in packs and so the only way to have gotten the cards was to buy them from the magazine and they were available at a few wrestling matches.
I have opened a large number of sealed sets with most being the 83 set and have never had any luck with those cards as most have corner dings. Many placed them in 9 pocket pages but those are the worst as the cards are larger then a standard trading card and no mint cards come from these.
It is pointless for me to debate this with you as you have never even handled one of these cards and don't realize their condition sensitivity.
I remember a few months back when some 1978 Topps commons sold for crazy amounts in a PSA 10. Anyone who collected that set would have known how tough those cards were and if they had the means perhaps would have taken a shot at them.
There are cards in this set that you may never see a PSA 9 let alone a PSA 10.
If you think someone can create a better set that is great. I want them to try. That is good for me. I just don't think it can be done.
My 109th Wrestling All Star (currently have 93 of 108 signed) should be the DPeck All Star autographed in a blue flip.....
BUYING Frank Gotch T229 Kopec Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
Cool set and display, you're a PSA super star now! As for the questions about what unopened may be left, there could be a few dozen sets left laying around in a box somewhere but until it happens, what supply is out there is it!
It is pretty wild. I have never seen a wave of demand this strong for the cards. The prices that some have sold for over the past few weeks are very strong.
It goes back to what I said when I first posted about these cards. Low supply.
I just sent in my last batch of raw cards that are strong. These came in sealed sets so there are no packs.
I have about 1600+ raw cards but many would grade no higher then a PSA 7 so I am not sending those in any time soon. The real money is obviously in the PSA 9's and 10's.
The batch I sent in has some very strong cards and then a few that are more set fillers to complete a graded run.
DPeck- I assume you submit some cards to BGS as well as PSA. How do you decide which cards to send to which grader? Also, being that you have this set on the PSA Registry, does Beckett have a registry too?
I have never sent any to BGS. I just buy them from time to time when I see them. I bought out a guy recently who needed some funds quickly and then listed them on EBAY.
There are a few buyers who are relentless at the moment.
I am not sure if BGS has a registry or not but I do know of a few people who are collecting the set in graded form and happen to like BGS holders.
Comments
Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
Make sure you go check out the Registry and you will find Lawler, and Dundee in 82A, and Austin Idol is in 83. All of those guys were obviously major stars in the CWF.
Here is a pic of relatively recent photo with Rickey Steamboat at the local FCW show with his WWE Hall of Fame ring. He is so proud of it and it was great to talk to him about his legendary matches with Flair and Randy Savage. It was a super cool moment.
I have spent countless hours too talking with my dad about the matches in the 70's that Eddie Graham promoted here in Orlando and it is special to me as well. Thanks for checking the article out.
The baseball glove was kind of a joke since so many of the baseball guys used to rag on the cards. I figured there would be something for everyone
EDIT: I just read that your Mom is a photographer, so I'm sure she could print nice pages for you.
The guy who does my moms prints is who did my high resolution scans. You need a serious scanner or to send the cards to PSA. I liked the idea better of getting someone local to scan them.
Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
Here is the Dick The Bruiser card. One of the things I like so much about these sets is the pictures in many cases were taken much earlier then the cards. They simply used the best stock photos they had that could look like a head shot.
From one non-mainstream sports card collector to another - Congratulations
Great article!
Logan
Kingnascar's PSA Sets
Kingnascar's PSADNA Sets
How this this come about? Did you write to them and they decided to do a story on you.
Congrats - very cool.
Back in May when that months SMR came out I read the current article in the magazine and thought they should do a story about my sets. I went out that night to a work dinner and came home in a bad mood and got a wild hair and wrote an email to Joe Orlando explaining why I thought it was a good idea. We had emailed in the past as I was making him more aware of the cards. The next day I got an email back that said they would love to and he got me hooked up with one of their writers and we did the interview and I got them a few pictures and some high resolution scans and then just waited patiently for it to come out.
I did the same thing one time with music. I love the band Everclear so I wrote to them one night on myspace when it was big asking to play with them because they were doing a show in my town and the next day I woke up and sure enough he wrote back saying sure. Its on youtube if you wanna check out how it came out. Just type in "Everclear Culture Room" and there you go. Id rather not really post the link to steal your thunder on here.
Again, Congrats!!!
Very cool pictures too. Good job to whoever took them. I like the one with with you outside wearing a glove. Thought that was kinda neat.
I am going to check this out.
Just checked it out that was super cool. Looks like a blast! My brother play guitar too, check out Bill Peck on YouTube as well.
<< <i>Very cool pictures too. Good job to whoever took them. I like the one with with you outside wearing a glove. Thought that was kinda neat. >>
I agree. I think it would be great if I ever got featured for my Butler collection (snowball's chance in hell of that happening, obviously) if I could be photographed with my tuba.
Dodgers collection scans | Brett Butler registry | 1978 Dodgers - straight 9s, homie
I no longer collect baseball cards but certainly appreciate your passion. I just checked out your registry link too and those are some very sharp cards.
So I assume youve met Mark Tremonti as well?
Moral of this topic - You never know till you try (because that's how thing happen) but all in all - you have a great collection of wrestling cards. Love that you went out and bought the best possible cards/set you could.
Happy New Years.
Marc
Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
I was shocked to see how fast those sets sold this morning.
Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
Any time though they are advertised as NM they are that or less. I don't trust any set in 9 pocket pages or laid on carpet to produce high grades.
These cards have to be forced into pages and there are no mint cards coming from them.
I checked out your sets last week and you have some awesome cards. The 52 Bowman of Musial was a PSA 9 and sweet!!!
In order to compile these sets I needed to buy a lot of material. I just never sold much of it so I am up to close to 2000 cards.
There is still work to do and it just has come to a stand still as no new cards are surfacing in strong condition. I am sure there are more out there but it is getting so tough to find anything new.
Lou Gehrig Master Set
Non-Registry Collection
Game Used Cards Collection
Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
The major problem is there has not been a decent number of new cards graded for three or four months and if there were tons of sealed sets of the 82A or 82B laying around they would have hit EBAY by now.
The last sealed set of the 82A sold for $1,461 so that is a big signal to potential sellers and trust me there are plenty of people who if they owned a sealed set would part ways with it at that price all day long.
There are definitely more nice cards out there but the big discovery phase has already happened.
I have close to 1400 raw cards left and not many that are going to grade a PSA 8 or higher. If you look at the lots on EBAY currently plenty have dinged corners and those will just not cut it if you are looking to get cards graded.
In terms of the late 70's material you collect, there are nearly 59,000 cards from 1977 graded, 106,000 from 1978 and just under 59,000 from 1979. You are dealing with two completely different animals.
It is a lot more difficult to predict the future when there have been 224,000 cards graded from the three year run of late 70's cards. There have been less then 1300 graded from the two years these sets ran and at least 50 of those were resubmitted by Rick Probstein and a few by me.
I have done a lot of homework on these sets. The guy I bought the sealed set from that is mentioned in the article sold off his batch in 2009. He lived in Minnesota where the sets were produced and had about 10 sets he had gotten from someone who worked for PWE in 1982 and 1983 and he would put them on display at shows for $10 back then and either get laughed at or get offers at $2 so he decided to pull them and put them aside and came across them in 2009. I bought one of each of the three sets from him and he knew from first hand knowledge these did not sell well back then direct from the company.
I know another guy from New York who has been responsible for a lot of the ultra rare signed cards that have surfaced and ended up in a few board member's collections and he said he had wrestlers actually keep the cards back in 1982 because they did not even know they had a trading card made of them. He was the only person getting these signed at the many events he attended back then.
I can't say with any real certainty what is left sealed but I doubt there is much. What I can say with 100% certainty is you can't recreate my sets. It is really not debatable. I have 43 Pop 1's and a hand full more where there are a few that are the top grade and I own the entire lot. This is not a statement to brag or pound my chest it is simply reality.
I can promise you one thing, there are a lot of dealers over the past two years that have moved graded product on EBAY and trust me if they could get their hands on some nice ungraded cards they would buy them in a heart beat. I have had several large dealers tell me they just can't find the stuff.
In 2010 when I first came on this board I said these were rare and were going to be a big draw for collectors. I was right they were rare, time will tell if I am right they will be a big draw for collectors. Judging by the price change since I began buying these cards one thing is true, when you have a low supply it does not take that many new buyers to have a price increase. The next year will be very telling for these cards and perhaps a lot come out of the woodwork but my bet is they don't in grading worthy condition.
<< <i>
<< <i>Great article Dpeck.My wife bought me Memphis Heat for xmas and it is awesone.I grew up watching Lawler,Dundee and all the guys that wrestled for Jarrett.Some of my greatest memories are of when my dad(passed away in 2008 at 58 yrs old) would take me to the Cincinnati Gardens to watch wrestling.I was there for one of the historic Flair/Steamboat matches.I used to bs with my dad all the time about the old wrestling days but I cant find anyone around here that has my enthusiasm about it. >>
When I say around here I mean the Cincy area. >>
I grew up approximately 80 miles from Memphis and would wake up every Saturday morning and watch Memphis wrestling. I've met Lawler and Dundee and a few others several times, My mom was good friends with Peggy Gilbert, (Wife of Tommy and Dirty Doug & Eddie hot stuff's Mom).
One of my favorites was "Handsome Jimmy". That dude was cool personified.
1982 A Sealed set
Here is the only sealed 82 A to make it's way to EBAY in the past six months and this Andre is probably a PSA 5 or 6 at best. Tons of the other cards have damage too.
One of the toughest cards in the set. 80% or more are severely off centered.
They were never distributed in packs and so the only way to have gotten the cards was to buy them from the magazine and they were available at a few wrestling matches.
I have opened a large number of sealed sets with most being the 83 set and have never had any luck with those cards as most have corner dings. Many placed them in 9 pocket pages but those are the worst as the cards are larger then a standard trading card and no mint cards come from these.
It is pointless for me to debate this with you as you have never even handled one of these cards and don't realize their condition sensitivity.
I remember a few months back when some 1978 Topps commons sold for crazy amounts in a PSA 10. Anyone who collected that set would have known how tough those cards were and if they had the means perhaps would have taken a shot at them.
There are cards in this set that you may never see a PSA 9 let alone a PSA 10.
If you think someone can create a better set that is great. I want them to try. That is good for me. I just don't think it can be done.
Congrats, man! Super collection!!
I already have one!! Mcadams made this of me in the Hulk Hogan thread from about 18 months ago.
Thanks for checking out the article and the kind words.
Looking to BUY n332 1889 SF Hess cards and high grade cards from 19th century especially. "Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy" Dan Gable
It goes back to what I said when I first posted about these cards. Low supply.
I have about 1600+ raw cards but many would grade no higher then a PSA 7 so I am not sending those in any time soon. The real money is obviously in the PSA 9's and 10's.
The batch I sent in has some very strong cards and then a few that are more set fillers to complete a graded run.
Strong interest in the cards so I listed a few more and this was one of them.
There are a few buyers who are relentless at the moment.
I am not sure if BGS has a registry or not but I do know of a few people who are collecting the set in graded form and happen to like BGS holders.